Every one in this post has a good point. Both weapons are used to kill. In the case of mastering and using the weapons, I would have to say guns are more efficient. With sword fighting it can take years to master the skills, but with guns it takes usually under a year to learn how to shoot properly. Guns are also more usefull in combat. A sword cannot be concealed easily, but a gun can be broken down and stored in a pocket, then quickly assembled in seconds. Now, I perfer swords above all else, and would choose that over a gun as long as I knew what I was up against. If you pitted a Master swordsmen against an advanced Marksman, I believe the swordsman would win. I read that some Samurai could move faster than the human eye and draw so fast that the air crackles behind the blade. With a gunman, you need to use your eyes to focus on your target, and usually the target isn't moving so fast. This is my first post ever and I hope you guys wont go too hard on me.

I'd still prefer a world of swords. As somebody very intelligently put earlier, even if a 4 year can shoot the world's best soldier and kill him easily, a 4 year old can also cut down the world's best swordsman with a sword easily. However, I don't like the range idea.

It's hard for me to fathom the skill some soldiers have to use in order to stay alive when bullets hundreds of yards away can come whizzing by and tear them, to shreds. Guns are weapons of destruction, as are swords, but with swords, I feel a more definitive grasp that since the men have to be fairly close to execute their attack, each warrior has a chance of winning.

If a sniper was on a hill and he shot a man 500 yards away, the victim would have no say. With a sword, the victim could have a chance against his murderer. The ancients obviously recognized the use of the former and created the bow and arrow, another weapon I detest. So basically, if you were wanting a summary to all my rambling just now, it'd be I'd prefer swords because there isn't a chance of being killed from far away without the chance to return a death blow.

And if you didn't get the stressing in my post, I am not saying guns are cheap and do not require skill. [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/wink.gif[/IMG]

Windural, think of this. You are in the woods being hunted by a man who is far more skilled than you in swordfighting. Would you want to fight him knowing that, without a doubt, you would be killed? Or, if you had a gun, you could kill him first without risking your life in a suicide attack. Now, I would use swords above all else, but if I had another way to win without putting myself in too much danger, I would choose a gun. All weapons have proper uses at proper times.

No I thinking of the "I'm taking you with me" philosophy...of course, he could always decapitate me and I would have no oppurtunity to do payback, but yea.... Please don't tell me you're suggesting in that kind of situation I would prefer a sword to a gun...cuz that's not what I said at all.

Greetings everyone, I have followed this thread with close interest and have decided to register here just to reply.

With all due respect, there have been some very stupid replies made here, whether contradictory, incorrect, completely off-topic etc.

I don't really wish to post my view here, but more just to vent my frustration at some of these replies.

But the only thing I will say for now is that if modern weapons require no skill whatsoever, why do our nations even have armies? Surely it would be far cheaper to just hand out the weapons to the general population and let them get on with it? Did any of you consider that?

I would like to say that I have been both in the army cadets here in the UK (using both SA80's and fuly automatic LSW's), and also used Katana. Both require extreme skill and focus and both are extremely deadly. It is not 'easy' to use a firearm against a target. In fact it's far easier to empty a full clip at somebody and miss with every round (especially so with an AK47 on continous fire, since they have terrible aim and are better suited to keeping the enemies' heads down).

That's all I can be bothered to say right now. I don't want to get contradictory with myself I am just taking a balanced view on this.

Anyone who thinks there is no skill in using any "modern" weapon doesn't know what they are talking about. Lets try a little distinction here. Most are calling the sword an "old world weapon" and the gun a modern weapon. Either your forgetting or you don't realize guns and swords co-existed in Japan. When teh japanese begun using fire arms in battle along with swords the death count by the sword didn't drop as much as some of you would think. We know this for a fact due to the maticulous notes kept by the japanese on the cause of death, type and number of injuries sustained by there soldiers. The true advantage of fire arms is range and the ability to kill or injure more in less time. The skill level to do this is no lower than that of a sword. With fire arms there are stances, breathing technique, speed and accuracy training involved. Just like with any martial art studied today or any other time. Some say you can just push a button and launch a missile. Get educated on the subject before you make an ignorant statement, before i get hounded for calling anyone ignorant look up the definition. Most of you have no idea about the 45 min to an hour of planning it takes after you know where the target is just to launch a missile. That sniper that is going to take you out from 500yrds? Don't you think he had extensive training? Do you think you can just take a riffle and scope and go hide in the hills and pick people off? This isn't Halo. Bottom line is any weapon you can think of has it's own "art form", they all take training and skill to use effectively. Any one can pick up any weapon with no training and kill someone, it's how efficiently you can kill with that weapon. I've seen archers who are faster and more accurate with a bow than most people i've seen with a gun. Weapons are still just a tool, but so is the human body, just a tool of the mind and emotion.

Hello. I read this thread, and I know everyone had very good points to bring to the table. Swords and guns are both tools of death. In a simple summary, they both take the same amount of time to master. The only true differences are range, and the fact that guns use ammo. Even after that however, they can still do their melee damage. I enjoyed reading this thread.

The decline in society's values births a large amount of the said "thugs", and yes, a lot of them have absolutely no skill with the sword or the gun. The samurai did things like murder because they knew they could get away with it. Some were "thugs" and others did know what was right and wrong. I don't see too much of a difference except weapon and time.

I disagree. Guns are much easier to "master" than a katana. I'd wager it takes a good 30 years or so to really come to level of competency with a sword that anyone could legitimately consider you to have any degree of "mastery". You can become a certified sharp shooter in any one of our 4 military branches in just a few short years of training.